


the primadonna life (the rise and fall)

by castelia



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Carrie Wilson Redemption, Character Study, Gen, is she divorced? dead? something else entirely? you decide, purposefully vague about her mother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28395243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castelia/pseuds/castelia
Summary: “I know what I saw, baby. They’re ghosts.” Her father's face is white, like he is the ghost. “They’re in Julie’s band.”“Even if that’s true,” Carrie says, which is a colossalif, “why would they be haunting you?”
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Carrie Wilson, Julie Molina & Carrie Wilson, Luke Patterson & Carrie Wilson, Reggie Peters & Carrie Wilson
Comments: 29
Kudos: 181





	the primadonna life (the rise and fall)

Before Carrie was born, Dad was in a band with his friends from high school until they died. He tells her this with wistful eyes and another emotion her five year old self can’t name (later, when the foundations of her world have been rocked, she’ll know it’s guilt).

Carrie doesn’t much care for the story, aside from the fact that her father survived the incident. He has new music after all, without his old band, and it’s thanks to that success that she can eat big cake and go to their private pool and wear whatever clothes her heart desires.

She squints at the sun on the water. She has a rose in her hands. Material things don’t make life better, but they make it easier.

She drops the rose in the water and watches the waves take it away, pretending it will find its way to her mother.

Carrie is good at pretending.

Everyone stares.

Daughter of Trevor Wilson, of course she’s in the music program; it’s what expected of her, it’s what she _wants_. She wants to share her music with the world.

She feels like everyone is watching her every move, just waiting for her to mess up. But she _won’t_ , she’ll show them all: she’s going to be a legend.

She shares her school with other girls and boys her age (they belong here, they made it in the music program because they’re talented, not because their dad is). She’ll show them up for the amateurs they are.

Everyone stares. Carrie just has to make sure they’re watching her success instead of her downfall.

Her dad is good friends with a woman called Rose, but recently, the two have been on the outs. It’s a shame, because Rose’s daughter and Carrie had really been getting along.

Julie is determined and hard-working, as charismatic as she is inspiring. 

They make up their own dance routines and laugh when it gets silly. They sing, introducing Julie to the genre with her dad’s music, and Carrie frowns.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” asks pretty Julie with the butterfly clips in her hair.

Julie sings like an angel.

Carrie sings like an imitation of her real self.

Julie’s better, because she’s genuine.

“Nothing,” she says airily, smiling brightly: the way she talks to strangers, fake and plastic. It's the first time she talks to Julie like that.

It’s far from the last.

It goes like this:

Her dad and Rose are on the outs for a reason she will not find out until much, much later.

Rose is kind and motherly in a way that aches. Julie is kind and friendly in a way that gets stifling. She can’t pretend around them.

Her father stops talking to Rose so Carrie stops talking to Julie; that’s what she tells people.

Really, it’s because Carrie is a tightrope walker. There’s no room for two on the wire—and Julie has always been able to tell when her smile is a lie.

Rose dies.

Carrie tilts her head and tosses her hair and leaves Julie’s life like it doesn’t matter.

(It does.)

Nick is kind, too, but his innocent eyes see right through her. She tells herself that’s how she likes it. She tells herself a lot of things.

Carrie is a teenager in high school and takes Nick for a boyfriend because it’s expected, because he’s fairly popular and she’s committed to being perfect. Perfect life, perfect career, perfect boyfriend.

They break up and get together again more than once. A part of Carrie is amazed that he’s putting up with her attitude. A part of Carrie fears that this is it, this is what love is like, a passionless relationship with a guy who only _puts up_ with her.

Fear becomes acceptance—it’s true. The only authentic love from someone not related to her she ever experienced is dead and buried, and she won’t get a second chance.

But Carrie is good at pretending.

Perfect is crumbling. Perfect is Julie and her band of holograms being the talk of the school, perfect is Nick breaking up with her because he is _done_ putting up with her. Perfect is not real.

Everyone is still staring.

 _All eyes on me,_ Carrie sings to the world.

Before Carrie was born, Dad was in a band with his friends from high school until they died.

“They’re haunting me,” he says.

“Have you talked to your therapist recently?” Carrie asks in the fake plastic voice she now uses with everyone because she doesn’t know how to stop.

“I know what I saw, baby. They’re ghosts.” His face is white, like he is the ghost. “They’re in Julie’s band.”

“Even if that’s true,” she says, which is a colossal _if_ , “why would they be haunting you?”

Carrie is good at pretending.

Turns out, she gets that from her father.

The house smells of mouth-wateringly delicious food. What it lacks in size and wealth, it makes up for with character.

“Carrie,” Ray Molina says, surprise etched into his every feature.

She wonders if he sees the little girl behind her eyes, the one that laughed with his daughter without caring what anyone thought about her.

She keeps her head held high. “I’m here to see Julie.”

Julie’s father nods, his eyes understanding, _knowing_ , and it is all Carrie can do not to run away from him. She can’t remember the last time someone looked through her facade.

“Why are you _here_ , Carrie?”

“Your Orpheum performance.” She pauses. Breathes in. Breathes back out. “It was really good.”

Julie’s jaw goes slack with shock. Her father invites Carrie to stay for dinner. It is stilted and awkward.

They keep looking at her, and Carrie doesn’t know what they’re expecting, doesn’t know how to appease those expectations when that’s all she knows how to do.

After dinner, Julie and Carrie wordlessly go to Julie’s room.

She hasn’t been here in years.

(She hasn’t been herself in years.)

“I’m sorry,” she says, voice soft, because it’s been years and perfect is not real. “Everything I said to you. Leaving you. All of it. I’m sorry.”

“…I appreciate that, Carrie,” she says, giving a small smile. “That’s… I really hadn’t been expecting this.”

“Expectations,” she says, “are overrated.”

The smile grows bigger, but no less real. Carrie tries one for herself and finds that it’s easier than she thought.

Julie lifts an eyebrow. “So what changed?”

“I’m just tired of pretending all the time.”

The room is full of personality and so quintessentially _Julie_ that it’s almost dizzying. Her eye catches a rumpled white shirt lying on top of a box.

“So. Julie.” She smirks and asks once again, “How _do_ you do those holograms?”

Julie flounders, her smile becoming forced. “I told you, boring science stuff, you really don’t—“

“Don’t want to know that ghosts are real?” Carrie fills in, feeling satisfaction at taking Julie off guard. “I have Google too, you know. When my dad saw the performance and insisted his dead friends were in your band, well, I looked them up.”

Julie lets out a breath. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“With the way my dad is going crazy, I think sooner or later the secret will be out.” She considers the room. “Are they here?”

“No. They’re probably in the studio.” Julie lifts an inviting eyebrow. “Do you want to meet them?”

She hesitates. Julie sees.

“Don’t worry, they’re actually very sweet. These ghosts are different from the stories.”

“…Okay.”

“They used to be only visible whenever I play with them,” she says. “Now they’re visible for a little while when I touch them.”

She does just that, and three boys appear, looking identical to the pictures she found on the internet.

Sunset Curve, it had told her. A band of four members, three of which died tragically young in an accident, after which the fourth disappeared without a trace. Bobby. Trevor Wilson. Would he have met Carrie’s mother, had he not lost his friends?

These boys getting food poisoning is likely the reason Carrie even exists.

“So you’re the ghosts,” she says snidely.

“So you’re Bobby’s daughter,” the one with blonde hair counters. Then, he does something unexpected.

He smiles at her.

“I’m Alex.”

The one with the leather jacket immediately chimes in with the sunshiniest grin she’s ever seen, “Hi, I’m Reggie.”

The final one says, “My name is Luke.”

Carrie lets out a startled laugh. “That’s one of the songs he stole from you. _My Name Is Luke_. Wow.”

He, too, smiles at her. “I know.”

It doesn’t make sense.

“Why are so being so nice to me? My father stole your music, your _legacy_.”

“Yeah, your father did,” Alex says, his eyes kind. “Not you.”

“That’s…”

Carrie is speechless.

Daughter of Trevor Wilson, yes, but she is not him.

“Hey,” Alex says when she can’t find any words. “I really liked your dance routine from your last song.”

She perks up instinctively. “You like to dance?”

“Boy, does he,” says Reggie.

Alex gives him a look before he regards Carrie again. “I’d love to dance with you sometime when you can actually see me.”

“I…I’d like that.”

Julie grins at her incandescently.

There is Luke’s wry smile, Alex’s kind smile, Reggie’s cheerful smile.

Genuine. They are all genuine in a way she has deprived herself of and craved for years.

And Carrie? Carrie grins back twice as bright.

She is genuine, too.

Carrie leaps off the tightrope and lands neatly on her feet.


End file.
